Number 91 / Autumn 2006 1906 One hundred years of the Historical Association 2006 Number 91 / Autumn 2006 The magazine of The Historical Association 4 Foreword Lady Antonia Fraser 6 Swanning around Jeremy Paterson 10 A Parade of Past Presidents 1906-82 Donald Read 24 The Norton Medlicott Medal Bill Speck 30 For Short Time an Endless Monument: The Shifting History of a Familiar London Landmark Lisa Jardine 38 Wise in Counsel: An Appreciation of Harold Freakes Michael Biddiss 40 Tours Lawrence Lyle 45 The Branches of the in this issueHistorical Association 1906-2006 Chris Wrigley 58 A timespan of interests Rafael Manuel Pepiol 62 An Alien’s approach to the Historical Association Rafael Manuel Pepiol 66 The Historical Association and Local History Trevor James 70 Publications The Centenary edition of Joe Smith and Malcolm Crook The Historian is sonsored by 76 Changes to history in schools Nicolas Kinloch 78 Primary History in the Historical Association Roy Hughes The Historian / Centenary Edition / Autumn 2006 3 Joint Editors Bill Speck and Ian Mason [email protected] Editorial Board Gordon Batho Harry Dickinson Roy Hughes Trevor James Nicolas Kinloch Seán Lang Rafael Pepiol Melanie Tebbutt Chris Wrigley Publisher Madeline Stiles Foreword I am extremely happy to salute history – in my opinion the greatest this glorious Centenary. For it so and most rewarding professional Layout Martin Hoare happens that I gave my first ever passion that one can have. lecture to the Historical Association, following the publication of Mary Having begun my career as a Queen of Scots in 1969. The occasion lecturer at a particular branch of took place in Glasgow and in the the Historical Association, and middle of it I received a revelation continued it over the years to others, (I make so such claims for my it was therefore with enormous The Historical audience). To begin with I had been pleasure that I received the award of Association transfixed with terror and I can still the whole Association in 2000 – the 59a Kennington Park Road remember that I spoke much, much Norton Medlicott Medal – when I London SE11 4JH Tel: 020 7735 3901 too fast, the beginner’s error when lectured on the value of biography Fax: 020 7582 4989 she hopes that the hour of the lecture to history. The wheel had come E-mail: [email protected] will be over as quickly as possible for full circle: well, not quite, since I www.history.org.uk all parties concerned. Then in the have published another historical Patron middle of rattling away about Mary biography since then and yet another Her Majesty The Queen Queen of Scots and the Historians, – my ninth full length historical President I realised that the audience was not work – appears in August 2006. So Professor Barry Coward the enemy but my friends. What the wheel are, as it were, still turning. Deputy President united us was a common love of Nicolas Kinloch My own love of history was ignited Honorary Treasurer by a combination of things. First Kingsley Jones I gave my first there was the good fortune of being Honorary Secretary an exceptionally early reader so Seán Lang ever lecture to that I could plunge into Our Island Chief Executive Story for myself when I was four Madeline Stiles the Historical and a half: and however much the A company limited by guarantee. standards of society have changed in Registered in England Association, the hundred years since the book’s number 435 448. creation, I shall remain forever Registered charity 313133. A list of directors is available following the grateful to its author Henrietta from the registered office. Elisabeth Marshall for being the first to excite me on the subject. After Originated and published by publication of The Historical Association Our Island Story I have to say that and printed in Great Britain by Black Beauty seemed quite tame. Blackmore Limited, Longmead, Mary Queen of Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8PX Early reading also meant that I ISSN 0265-1076 Scots in 1969. could roam freely among the books 4 The Historian / Centenary Edition / Autumn 2006 in the Public Library at Oxford, influence, one peculiarly appropriate embarrassment thirty years later at where I was brought up. There I to the Centenary of the Historical finding he had slipped secretly into developed an amateur method of Association, that of my teachers a lecture I gave on Warrior Queens research, tracking my favourite at various stages of my ‘historical’ in Boston, where he was a visiting historical characters from book to development. Professor; how he shook his head book and trying to make up my afterwards, sadly but sweetly, at my own mind when views differed. For example Mother Mercedes errors of interpretation over Matilda Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire Lawler I.B.V.M. ‘sort of blew in of Tuscany. Anne Whiteman was was an early favourite after reading from Ireland’ according to the genial and generous, combining a Marjorie Villiers’ Grand Whiggery official history of my school St zest for history with a love of the and after that I moved to the letters Mary’s Convent, Ascot. Whatever novels of Anthony Powell and good of her circle. I didn’t always get the her credentials, she was an inspired claret; we remained friends to the order right. Starting on Cardinal teacher of history because she loved end of her life. These two certainly Newman, my next favourite, I was inspired by the essay of the brilliant, What united us was a common love teasing Lytton Strachey on Manning in which Newman features as in of history; in my opinion the greatest effect the hero. It was only after that that I moved to the stout late Victorian volumes on Manning by and most rewarding professional E.S. Purcell which Lytton Strachey boasted of replacing with a new, less passion that one can have. stuffy historical style. it so much; from Mother Mercedes shared the conviction that anyone This is not to ignore the place of I derived a passion for the Empress can have ‘true knowledge... if you historical fiction in igniting the Maria Theresa which was eventually love and seek it’. youthful imagination: the recent resolved in my biography of her article by Dr Stephen Collis in The daughter Marie Antoinette half a As to the books of the great Historian on ‘the world of Harrison century later. I was also fascinated historians of the past, I began with Ainsworth’ reminded me of the by the founder of the order – the Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle, who thrill of devouring Old St Paul’s (my Institute of the Blessed Virgin never made the mistake of thinking favourite – oh, the piteous fate of Mary – named Mary Ward, born in that the style of Dryasdust made the lovely Amabel!). Nor should 1585 and an ardent believer in the good history better. It would be I forget the pleasure of reading education of women; that was an otiose as well as impossible to select Margaret Irwin as a teenager: The interest which found its place in my from among the living, especially in Bride still lingers somewhere in my study of Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth the category of historical biographers mind when I think of Montrose. It Century England, The Weaker Vessel. since I don’t think I have ever read is just that from the first I foundreal Among the sayings of Mary Ward a historical biography without history – a dangerous term perhaps was this one, dated about 1618, deriving some pleasure and profit but members of the Historical which particularly impressed me and from it. So I shall select arbitrarily Association will know what I mean which I have tried to bear in mind three books, works of history rather – even more exciting. ever since: ‘It is not learning that I than straightforward biography, commend to you but knowledge, which made me look at the historical So far history had been a private true knowledge which you may all world in a different way: Garrett pleasure, especially since both have if you love and seek it.’ Mattingly’s Defeat of the Spanish my parents, Frank and Elizabeth Armada (1959); Keith Thomas, Longford, were by education My teachers at Oxford in the early Religion and the Decline of Magic classicists, and during my youth fifties included Karl Leyser and (1971); and Linda Colley, Britons: their chosen profession was politics Anne Whiteman. Karl as a tutor, forging the nation (1992). Inspired (my mother became a distinguished on Mediaeval Germany, was an by them and many, many others, historical biographer but by the time original, near incomprehensible I toast the Historical Association her formative Victoria R.I. appeared genius so far as I was concerned in its hundred-year quest for ‘true I was in my mid thirties with my but at all times warm-hearted knowledge’ done with love. own large family). But it is now that and forgiving of those of lesser I must acknowledge the other great standards. I can still remember my Lady Antonia Fraser The Historian / Centenary Edition / Autumn 2006 5 Focus Swanning around — JEREMY PATERSON It does not get much better than this. I am standing on the bridge of the ship, Minerva II, as it noses its way out of the Black Sea and into the Bosphorus. On this fine morning my task is to provide a commentary for the Swan Hellenic passengers who are thronging the rails of the ship as we head for Istanbul. Yes, we are ‘sailing to Swan Hellenic Byzantium’ – a cue for a couple of lines from Yeats: cruise into history.